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Tour De France 2015 Stage 4
The fourth stage of the 2015 Tour De France Began in Seraing in Belgium, and finished in Cambrai in France. The stage lasted 223.5km, and was won by Tony Martin, gaining him the Yellow Jersey. There was one Category 4 climb: the Cote del la Citadelle de Namur, and an intermediate sprint in Havay. The Stage Due to the crash on Stage 3, three more riders did not start Stage 4 due to the consequences. These were Bora-Argon's Andreas Schillinger, Orica Greenedge's Daryl Impey and former Yellow Jersey wearer Fabian Cancellara. This inceased the number of riders affected by the crash to 7. The initial breakaway consistedof 4 riders: Astana's Lieuwe Westra, Lotto-Soudal's Thomas De Gendt, Europcar's Perrig Quemeneur and Bretagne's Fréderic Brun. By 37km, they had a time gap of 9:10. De Gendt was the first over the summit of Namur, gaining him the one mountains point available on the stage. After the stronger teams took control of the peloton, the time gap began to decrease. This increase of speed caused a break in the peloton, however the bunch regrouped after the cobblestones when the peloton slowed down. This also caused the time gap to the breakaway to rise from 1:50 to 3:45. De Gendt also scored maximum points at the intermediate sprint, followed by Brun, Westra and then Quemeneur. Mark Cavendish won the bunch sprint, gaining him 5th place. A number of kilometres after the sprint, Alex Dowsett suffered a crash and had to ride the remainder of the stage off the back of the peloton. With 40km left, the breakaway was caught and the peloton came back together. However, soon after, two groups formed in front of the peloton; a group containing around 30 riders, and then another group of chasers behind them, containing André Greipel. A group of 8 riders escaped from the front group, however were soon caught again. At 3km to go, Tony Martin, who had re-entered the front group after having a puncture, broke away from the rest of the group. He rode to the line solo, finishing 3 seconds ahead of the group and also taking a 10 second time bonus. Final Result Overall Standings Due to Tony Martin winning the stage, he gained 3 seconds over Chris Froome and also gained a 10 second time bonus. The remainder of the Top 10 finished 3 seconds behind Martin, however Peter Sagan gained a 4 second time bonus for finishing third, moving him above Greg Van Avermaet. Thomas De Gendt gained a point for ascending the stage's mountain in first place, adding him to the leaderboard. Rodriguez retained the Jersey for a second day. Greipel gained 9 points in the intermediate sprint, and Cavendish gained 11. However, neither of these contested the final sprint. As a consequence, the top 3 finishers (Martin, Degenkolb and Sagan) all gained a number of points, placing them above Cavendish and closing the gap to Greipel. Peter Sagan remained in the White Jersey. Category:Tour De France 2015 Stages